(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: Once you've identified the members of your team who are critical to achieving your department's business goals, aim to spend roughly 80 percent of your time with the top 20 percent of your staff.
Translation: Micromanage the best, ignore the rest
-This week's anonymous contributor couldn't ignore this instruction from his company's internal management newsletter

Four words to eliminate from your vocabulary are good, bad, right, and wrong. No, I'm not promoting rampant immorality, abandonment of your ethical code, or abolishment of truth, righteousness, and the American way.

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Great Quotations: “My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.” - George Washington.
-And thanks to David Mott for bringing this quote to our attention.


Generalists, according to the old joke, know nothing about everything, as opposed to specialists, who know everything about nothing.

Their managers know nothing about anything, which is why they hire consultants like me — people who know everything about everything.

Or at least know how to create that impression.

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: The company wants the analyst's report this way.
Translation: The CEO wants the report to support the decision he's already made.
-This week's anonymous contributor wanted the translation this way.


To operate a computer, you point, click, double-click, or right-click. To operate a car you push on the gas, stomp on the brake, or crank the steering wheel.

Which is why you have to feel sorry for Steven Spear.

Spear, you'll recall, authored Chasing the Rabbit (2008) — an in-depth analysis of what makes high-performance organizations tick. It’s a fine book. Spear based much of his analysis on Toyota, though, which has managed to mess up gas, brakes and steering… pretty much the entire driving experience.

The easy conclusion is that Spear is a chump and his book a waste of time.

The correct conclusion, it appears, is that his advice is right on the money, and it’s too bad Toyota’s executive team stopped taking it.

That, at least, is what’s reported by Blaine Harden in a piece that recently ran in the Washington Post (“‘Toyota Way’ was lost on road to phenomenal worldwide growth, ” 2/13/2010).

The lessons for IT:

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: It looks like you’ve thought of everything.
Translation: I have no ownership in this idea, and no reason to care about it. Good thing you won’t need my help.
-This week’s anonymous contributor might not have thought of everything, but he did think of an excellent translation.


BIG/GAS stands for "Business Is Great/Government and Academics are Stupid."

It’s a popular proposition among the shouting classes, but NASA — specifically Spirit and Opportunity — have, over the past six years, driven a few more nails in its coffin. While unpopular in some circles the two Mars rovers have, as of this writing, exceeded their planned mission lives by more than 2,500%.

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: Good corporate citizen.
Translation: Chump.
-Anonymous KJR citizen.


Ever wonder where ISO 9000 got its name?

Not long ago I was approved as a vendor for a company whose name you’d instantly recognize were I dopey enough to make snide comments about a new client. My new client outsourced its vendor approval process to a company proud of its ISO 9000 certification.

The process began in August and completed the end of December.

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: More Later.
Translation: I don't consider you worthy of the converstation in the first place, and I have no intention of carrying it on with you in the future.

-Paul Novelli joins the KJR Club with this worthy translation.

A good debater, I’m told, can successfully argue either side of an issue. I’ve also been told, mostly by debaters, that this is desirable … that learning to debate is an excellent way to create fair-minded citizens.

"If you board the wrong train, it's no use running along the corridor in the other direction," said famed World War II German resistance fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We in IT boarded the wrong train a long time ago. It's the "standard model" of information technology organizations -- the familiar litany that says CIOs should run IT as a business, meeting the requirements of its internal customers. This refrain has been endorsed by our holy trinity, too: analyst firms, most consultancies, and ITIL.

They call the standard model "best practice." When they're in a different mood, they also call desktop lockdown a best practice, leaving you to figure out how it is that you tell your customers what they can and can't do.

[Read more... ]

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

ManagementSpeak: All good ideas degenerate into work
Translation: Unless you would like to do the work, please keep your bright ideas to yourself.

This week's anonymous contributor shared his bright idea with us.


The first article I ever published in InfoWorld began, “Does anyone else find the Gartner Group annoying?”

While no longer a Group, the annoying part is alive and well, as evidenced by its recent prediction, reported in Network World , that by 2012, “Cloud computing will become so pervasive that by 2012, one out of five businesses will own no IT assets at all.”

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

“Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.” - Oscar Wilde

And thanks to Jack Kastorff for including this in this year’s Lessons from Life calendar ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

Consider Burj Khalifa.

It’s widely understood to be a triumph of architecture and engineering, for the most part due to its height and beauty.

I think so too, although I know nothing important about it. If I had an office on the 157^th floor that was too warm or cold, the facilities manager might or might not agree with my assessment of the building - he might consider the HVAC system to be an engineering disaster, just as the network engineers responsible for cable management might or might not appreciate the provisions for cable runs and wiring closets.